Many women coming out of an abusive marriage have not worked for years. Not by choice, but because working was not permitted, or because it was made impossible by refusing childcare, refusing transport, or arriving at the workplace often enough that the job became untenable.
That leaves a gap on a form and a very much larger gap in confidence. The form is the easier problem.
The gap on the form
You do not owe an employer your history. What you need is one sentence that closes the subject without inviting the next question.
I took time out for family reasons and I am returning now. That is true, complete and unremarkable.
Practise saying it aloud until it sounds ordinary, because the discomfort in your voice is what prompts follow up questions, not the words themselves. Say it the same way you would say you moved house.
You are not obliged to disclose that you experienced abuse, at any stage, to anybody. Some women choose to tell one named person once they have the job, which is a different decision and can wait until you know the place.
Confidence
Years of being told you are useless does not lift because you have a new address. Expect to underestimate yourself in interviews and to describe your own skills too modestly. Almost every woman we work with does.
Two things help more than encouragement.
Write down what you actually did. Running a household on very little money is budgeting, planning, negotiation and logistics. Managing a child’s health appointments is administration. Keeping a small trade going while somebody removed the capital is business under conditions most employers have never faced.
Practise with somebody who will interrupt you. Specifically somebody who will stop you when you minimise. The phrase to listen for in your own answers is only. I only did the accounts. I only ran the shop.
Keeping yourself safe at work
- Ask that your address is not on any shared system, staff list, delivery list or notice board.
- Ask reception never to confirm that you work there. This is the one that fails most often, so ask for it specifically and in writing.
- Give one named senior person the outline, so somebody knows without it circulating.
- Use a work number or a second phone as your contact number.
- Check what your employer publishes. Staff photographs on social media have located women more than once.
What an employer can reasonably do is short, costs almost nothing, and is worth sending to a manager who wants to help but does not know how.
References
If your last employment was years ago, a character reference works. A pastor, an imam, a teacher, a doctor, a landlord, a volunteer coordinator.
We can also act as a reference for women we have worked with, and we do this regularly. Employers who work with us understand what the gap means and do not treat it as a mark against anybody.
Documents
A job usually needs a national identity number, a bank account and sometimes a tax number.
If those are missing, start with the national identity number, because most other things follow from it and because enrolment does not require your husband’s knowledge or consent. If a centre tells you it does, that is not a legal requirement and you can go to another centre.
Opening an account is covered separately, including what to do when you have none of the usual proof of address.
What kind of work to look for first
The first job after years out is not the job you keep. Its purpose is income, a payslip, a reference and a routine, in that order.
Shift work with predictable hours is easier to build childcare around than work with variable hours. Employers with a proper contract matter more than employers with a good salary, because the contract is what makes a tenancy application possible later.
If it goes badly
Some interviews will. Being asked a question you cannot answer calmly, in a small room, by a man, is genuinely difficult in the first year, and there is no trick that removes that.
Aim for volume rather than perfection at the start. Treat the first few as practice and say so to yourself beforehand, because the ones you have written off are the ones you perform well in.
If a panel is unkind, that is information about the employer rather than about you.
The first weeks
Expect to be more tired than the work justifies. Concentration is one of the things trauma takes and one of the last to come back, and a full day of it is exhausting in a way that is hard to explain. That is normal and it improves.
Expect transport to be the practical problem before the first salary arrives. Say so if it is, because covering the journey for three weeks is one of the cheapest and most decisive things anybody can do for you, and it is part of what we arrange.
Questions people ask
Do I have to tell an employer why I stopped working?
No. A short neutral sentence is enough, and you are not obliged to disclose abuse at any stage.
I have no recent reference. Is that fatal?
No. Character references are widely accepted, and we can act as a reference for women we have worked with.
Should I tell my manager what happened?
Only if you want to, and if you do, tell one named senior person rather than a team. What matters practically is that reception never confirms you work there.
I have not worked in eight years. Is it too late?
No. The first job back is about income, a payslip and a reference. It is not the job you keep.
If you need help now
If you are in immediate danger, call 112. To talk to HealBridge, call or send a message to +2348025170267, or use the form on our contact page. Every page on this site has a Quick Exit button at the top right, and pressing the letter E three times does the same thing.
Before you rely on anything on this page
We publish these articles so that you can understand a subject and work out what to ask for. They are written carefully and in good faith. They are still general information about how things usually work, and not advice about your situation, which we do not know.
- This is not legal advice.
- We are not a law firm. Criminal law in Nigeria is largely a state matter, the VAPP Act applies in a state only if that state adopted it, and statutory, customary and Islamic marriages are governed by different law and different courts. Two people with the same facts can have genuinely different options. Get advice from a lawyer who practises where you live — and if cost is the obstacle, ask us, because arranging that is part of what we do.
- This is not medical advice.
- Nothing here is a diagnosis and nothing here replaces being examined. Do not delay seeing a doctor, nurse or pharmacist because of something you read here, and do not start, stop or change any treatment on the strength of it. If something is time critical, go and be seen.
- This is not counselling, and it is not financial advice.
- Articles about trauma, sleep, money, debt, renting or starting a business describe what commonly helps. They are not therapy and they are not a recommendation about your own money. Speak to a counsellor, a qualified adviser or your own bank about your circumstances.
- It may be out of date, or wrong for where you are.
- Law changes, services close, numbers stop answering and practice varies by state. We correct what we find, and we cannot promise that every page is current on the day you read it. Where we do not have something confirmed, we say so rather than fill the gap.
- Reading this does not make us your lawyer or your doctor.
- No professional relationship is created by reading an article, and we cannot accept liability for decisions taken on the strength of one. What we can do is help you reach somebody who is qualified to advise you, which is what the legal and health parts of our work exist for.
- We cannot promise an outcome, and we cannot make anybody safe.
- A protection order is a piece of paper backed by an enforcement system that is inconsistent. A plan works until the day it does not. Anybody in this field promising safety is selling something, and the promise itself is dangerous because it stops people planning.
Do not let this notice stop you acting. If you are in immediate danger, call 112. If something is medically urgent, go to a hospital — you do not need a police report to be treated. And if you do not know where to start, that is a normal way to begin: use the contact page and we will take it from there.
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